Choosing the right holiday is hugely important for consumers, which is why they’re willing to spend hours researching online before booking. Reviews and recommendations have played a key part in this process for years, with 88% of travellers using them today.
Nearly half of consumers use both online and offline channels for their pre-purchase research†. So it's no surprise that forward-thinking businesses like Tesco are focusing on better ways to make their online and offline channels work together to maximise overall conversion rate.
The arduous road to buying a car will now be a much smoother journey for customers of What Car? and motors.co.uk, who have just signed deals to put our trusted reviews and social content on their sites. (We'll really try to keep the puns to a minimum from here on in – but we can't promise.)
The M-Commerce Pecha Kucha held by Ecommerce UK last week was a fantastic event – but more than this, it was a sign of the times.
The event was packed with marketers and ecommerce professionals all keen to hear about the latest m-commerce developments and best practices hammered out by their peers.
No one was waiting to be convinced that they need to start planning to consider adding mobile to their marketing or selling strategy - next year, or the year after. The savvy crowd already knew that m-commerce is happening now.
The lines may be blurred when it comes to measuring the success of social commerce campaigns – but that doens't meant that measurement isn't possible, or social commerce isn't successful. In fact, out of the 50% of marketers who do measure the ROI of social commerce (according to their answers in a recent survey), 33% reported good or excellent ROI.
With 90% of purchases subject to some sort of social influence, it’s no surprise that social commerce is a top priority for businesses both now and heading into the new year. However, a new survey of marketers from Marketing Magazine reveals that the majority are missing out on the full potential of social commerce.
Regularly updating your website content is more important than ever, after another update to Google's algorithm.
The Panda update earlier this year affected 16% of search traffic, penalising sites that Google felt didn't provide searchers with high-quality content. But this new update affects 35% of searches – more than twice as many – and this time, Google's focusing on stale content.
Consumers and businesses alike have never had access to so much information - or more trouble turning the raw data that surrounds us into something useful.
A new type of business has arisen to solve this problem, either for consumers or for businesses. We're well placed to see the massive potential in all this unstructured data, having helped major multi-channel retailers and manufacturers like Sony extract meaningful insights from the flood of information.
Although the consumer electronics and travel sectors are much better known for their adoption of social commerce tools, the automotive sector has rapidly caught up. Reviews and ratings are now nearly as popular among car buyers (80% check reviews before purchase), as travel bookers (88% check reviews pre-purchase).
On the wall of our London office, we have the words "if everything's under control, you're not going fast enough" printed large. We've always moved fast as a company but in the last 12 months we've broken records - and still managed to keep everything under control.